HB and ATLAS

I’ve got a client who has had her HB and CTB reassessed back to April 2010 due to information received from ATLAS relating to earned income, notified to the claimant on 6th June 2014.

What can we do with this, if anything? I’m assuming it’s Tax Credits awards being amended but unless she’s kept old payslips for the relevant period is there any point challenging the information received from ATLAS?

Sounds like info received per HB A15/2014. LA’s getting real time info about earnings and non state pensions. Not sure what you can do but worth looking at the circular.

But this happened in June so predates A15/2014, but I will have a look, thanks.

Yes, my thoughts entirely Jac, copy to the Bulletin here

I think your client would definitely need to be able to produce P60’s or payslips if they wanted to challenge - as can be seen from the bulletin, it isn’t always clear exactly what income contained in these notices relates to.

If the claimant was notified by HB in June then I’d have thought it would have been too early to be RTI- that’s only been going for a couple of weeks (apart from a handful of pilots in September).  Also, I think PAYE RTI records only started in April 2012 (and then, only for some employers).

I understand that some (but not all ) HB system are using the ATLAS format for taking in RTI data so if they’ve just been notified then it could well be RTI.

If it is then worth pressing for more information ( could require a bit of pressure as DWP seem keen that LAs remain tight-lipped about RTI).